Abstract
Herbivore
disturbance can affect the grassland ecosystem services though creating
extensive disturbances vegetation and soil. This study focused on
plateau pika (Ochotona curzoniae ) disturbance to investigate the
effect of disturbance by small burrowing herbivores on ecosystem
services of alpine grasslands though five
sites. In this study, the palatable
plant biomass, plant species richness, soil water storage, soil organic
carbon, total nitrogen, phosphorus and
potassium stocks were used to
estimate the forage availability, biodiversity conservation, water
conservation, carbon sequestration and soil nutrient maintenance.
This
study showed that plateau pika disturbance was related to higher plant
species richness and soil organic carbon stock, associated with lower
palatable plant biomass and soil water storage, and had no effect on
total potassium stock, whereas the responses of soil total nitrogen and
phosphorus stocks to plateau pika disturbance were different among
sites.
The
palatable plant biomass, plant species richness, soil organic carbon,
total nitrogen and phosphorus stocks showed downward parabolas, whereas
the soil water storage showed a decreasing trend with increasing plateau
pika disturbance intensity. These results indicated that the role of
plateau pikas is dependent not only on the management target of alpine
grasslands but also on the plateau pika disturbance intensity.